OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR

This is the message I gave at our event at Bent Creek Baptist Church a couple of Saturdays ago.

Do you remember in the 1st movie of Jurassic Park when they are driving the jeep away from the T-Rex and there is a camera shot of the passenger side mirror and it shows "OBJECTS IN MIRROR ARE CLOSER THAN THEY APPEAR". The T-Rex is right on them.

As I got in my car the other morning, having a rough morning, I looked in the mirror and read that warning and thought that is how Satan works. He wants to bring things up from your past and make them huge. Think about it. Everyone of us has sinned and think about something you've done in the past that you still feel bad or guilty about. Satan is the great accuser and stands before God and says look at how he/she lives, see how they do...

• Revelation 12:10 (NIV)
  10Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say: "Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down.

Sometimes we are so far into our lives of sin that we have become trapped or enslaved. However, if you have been adopted into God's family through Christ, you can be free from that life. Meaning that as a Christ believer/follower He bought you out of that slavery and set you free.

• John 8:34-36 (NIV)
  34Jesus replied, "I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. 35Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. 36So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.

Did you get that last part, verse 36? Check out these next two verses:

• 1 John 1:9 (NIV)
  9If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.



• Psalm 103:12 (NIV)
  12 as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
  

So basically if we ask God for forgiveness, with a sincere heart, He forgives us and it's gone. So when Satan brings up junk that you have asked God to forgive you of, remember that you were already forgiven. Tell Satan to get lost because God has forgiven you. In fact, if you were to ask God to forgive you of something you have already asked to be forgiven of He would say "what sin?"